


muscles better and nerves more

by zjofierose



Series: YoI rarepair week [3]
Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon, Character Study, Fluff, M/M, Olympics, Polyamory, Post-Canon, Pre-Canon, Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-08
Updated: 2020-01-08
Packaged: 2021-02-27 12:01:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 4,171
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22176718
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zjofierose/pseuds/zjofierose
Summary: Three Olympics' worth of watching Viktor Nikiforov win gold, and one Olympics' worth of competing against him.
Relationships: Otabek Altin/Katsuki Yuuri/Victor Nikiforov/Yuri Plisetsky
Series: YoI rarepair week [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1594894
Comments: 21
Kudos: 54
Collections: YOI Rare Pair Week 2020





	1. 2006

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the YOI Rarepair Week 2020, Day 3: Olympics. Part of my Star, Star poly verse.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Torino Olympics: 2006

_ Yuri: _

“Come away from the TV, Yurochka, you’re too close.”

The small blond boy, days away from his fifth birthday, ignores his grandfather. He doesn’t want to back up, he wants to  _ see _ . He wants to watch the big boy with the long silver hair jump. He’s seen the kids down at the pond behind their building gliding across the ice on their cheap ice skates, but they’re nothing like him,  _ nothing _ like this.

“ _ Yura _ ,” his grandfather says, crossing the room and taking him by the shoulders. “You’re too close.” He pulls Yuri back several steps, then settles to the floor, pulling Yuri into his lap. “You can watch from here.”

“Who’s that?” Yuri squirms against his grandfather’s hold, but he does it carefully. He doesn’t want to lose sight of the boy on the ice. The way he moves is like magic.

“His name is Viktor Nikiforov,” his grandfather says, “he’s supposed to be Russia’s newest great star.”

“Viktor,” Yuri repeats, tasting the name on his tongue. There’s a Viktor who lives upstairs, and a Viktor who’s friends with his grandfather. It’s a normal name. But the boy on TV doesn’t seem normal. Yuri scowls and folds his arms. On the TV, the music has stopped, and people are throwing flowers at the boy with the silver hair. “He’s too old to be my friend.”

His grandfather chuckles against his back. “He’s young, to be at the Olympics. Just turned seventeen, the announcer said. But watch,” he points at the screen with one thick, gnarled finger. “He just won the gold medal at his first Olympics.”

Yuri squirms again, wanting to get closer. He can see the lights going dark on the ice as the Russian flag is lowered, can see the boy with the silver hair step up onto a big step, a bigger step than the boys on either side of him. He’s smiling, waving to the crowd, a wreath of flowers on his head. 

“What’s a gold medal, grandpa?”

“It what they give you when you beat everyone else, little tiger. It means you’re better than everyone else at what you do.”

Yuri watches as the boy - as  _ Viktor _ \- leans down, and a stranger slips a red ribbon with a big metal disc over his head. The medal is shiny, and Viktor holds it up for the cameras, smiling. 

“Grandpa,” Yuri says, with all the solemnity his nearly-five-year-old body can muster, “I want one of  _ those _ .”

His grandfather just laughs.

\---

_ Otabek: _

“Otabek,” his mother calls, “the Olympics are back on, do you want to come and watch?”

Otabek pauses in lacing up his skates. He’d gotten them over a month ago as a gift for New Year’s, and he’s been practicing every day since. He’s taught himself to skate forward and backward at speed, and to spin slowly in a circle without falling down. He likes it - he likes the cold crispness of the air, the slick glide of the ice under his skates, the way the exertion of it grounds him. He’s always been a good worker, he likes to do things well. 

“What’s on?” he calls back.

“It’s figure skating. That Russian boy with the long hair’s about to perform. They say he’s supposed to win the gold medal.”

Otabek frowns. He knows who she means, but he can’t remember the boy’s name. It’s not really important; Otabek would rather  _ do _ than  _ watch _ anyway.

“No, thank you,” he calls back, and returns to lacing up his skates. “But can you tell me who won when I come back?”

“Okay, Beka.” He places his skate guards onto his blades and stands, zipping his coat and pulling his hat down over his ears. Papa told him if he practiced every day for a month and still liked it, they’d get him lessons down at the rink in town. They’ve got an appointment in three days, and Otabek wants to be ready. Today he’s going to try a jump. 

His mother appears in the doorway, her gaze warm upon her eldest child. “Be safe, Beka. And come back in an hour. Do you have your watch?”

“Yes, Mama.” Otabek holds up his wrist to show her, and she nods, bending to swiftly kiss his forehead. He straightens his hat and turns to the door. “I’ll be back in an hour.”

On the TV, the Russian boy lands a jump and the crowd cheers distantly. Otabek opens the door, takes a deep breath, and begins to pick his way across the backyard to the iced over cow pond that serves as his first rink.

\---

_ Yuuri: _

“Yuuko,” Yuuri whispers, his face buried in his hands, huge brown eyes peeking out through his fingers. “I can’t watch.”

Yuuko elbows him, but she does it gently. “I don’t know what you’re worried about, silly, it’s Viktor. He’s going to win!”

“I know,” Yuuri says reverently, eyes locked on the small TV in front of them, “he always wins. He’s going to win this time, too.”

“Yeah!” Yuuko reaches over and clutches his hand as the music starts and Viktor begins to move, his arms unfolding in graceful arcs, his long, silver hair whipping around him as he picks up speed. 

They remain silent through the whole performance, clutching each other’s hands, and Yuuri doesn’t realize he’s holding his breath until spots start to dance at the edge of his vision and he inhales quickly so that he doesn’t miss a second of Viktor on the ice. 

The music ends and Viktor takes his final pose, flowers and stuffed toys raining down onto the ice, and Yuuko and Yuuri leap to their feet, flinging their arms around each other and shrieking with joy. 

“He did it!” Yuuri is shouting, “he did it!” He’s not sure why he’s crying, but Yuuko is too, so he doesn’t feel so bad about it. They settle back down on the bench to watch the medal presentation, and Yuuri watches, rapt, as they place a gold medal around the neck of his idol. 

“Someday,” he whispers to himself, “someday, I want to skate on the same ice as Viktor Nikiforov.”

\---

_ Viktor: _

The screams of the crowd have faded into background noise long since, and the flowers and stuffed toys have all been carted away to wherever they go after the competition is over. His costume is rebagged for cleaning, his skates and warm-up clothes are in his duffel by the door. He has eaten, bathed, and is now sitting on his bed in the Olympic village listening to the various parties raging outside, and trying to decide what to do.

Part of him, as both a seventeen year old and as a Russian, feels morally obligated to get dressed and get out there; to get as drunk as possible and show everyone present what a good time he is having and how well he has done. Another part of him wants nothing more than to turn out the lights, climb into his bed, and rub one out before falling deeply asleep. 

He looks at the gold medal sitting on the desk. It’s bigger and heavier than he expected. There’s a small bruise rising on his sternum where he’d let it thunk to his chest unthinking, not realizing how heavy a full disc of metal that size is. 

He thought it’d feel different, somehow, winning his first Olympic gold (definitely only the first, he tells himself) - feel more transformative, more real. Like more of an accomplishment instead of just one more task crossed off on the ever-growing list of competitions to win and records to break. 

Viktor sighs softly, and slumps against the pillows of the bed. He ate a little while ago, but he’s already hungry; he wishes he had food in the room, and didn’t have to go out or call someone to get any. He wishes his Italian were better so he could feel confident about going down into the town and drinking. He wishes Makkachin were here for him to pet, to greet him when he comes in the door.

He wishes he had someone to talk to.


	2. 2010

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Vancouver Olympics: 2010

_ Yuri _ :

“Yurochka, how many times do I have to tell you?  _ Scoot back _ .”

Yuri rolls his eyes and scoots back six inches, leaning forward immediately so that it makes hardly any difference. “I want to see Viktor win, Grandpa!”

“You can see him win from back here. It’s not like he knows you’re watching, little tiger.”

Yuri scowls. He  _ knows _ that, it’s not like he’s a little kid. He’ll be nine in another week, and he’s just been accepted to the advanced skating classes at the Moscow rink. Watching skating is  _ important _ . 

“He’s going to win, right, Grandpa?” He can’t help the frisson of fear at the thought of Viktor losing, but it feels like betrayal to even question Viktor’s abilities in any way, so he answers his own question instead. “Of course he’ll win. He’s the best!”

His grandfather ruffles his hair fondly, then drags him back another foot, Yuri whining and squirming the whole way. “He’ll win, Yurochka. Look at him go. No one else can touch him.”

Yuri barely hears him. The music has started, and on the small curved screen, Viktor is beginning to move. Yuri leans in.

\---

_ Otabek _ :

Otabek waits for the end of the commercial break, seated in front of the TV with his snacks and his water, a notepad and pen by his side. He’s been skating for four years now, and he’s gotten good - he’s under no illusion that he’d be able to compete for the next Olympics, he’s still too raw for that, but the one after that… in eight years, he’d be nearly twenty, and if he keeps up his practice… He shakes his head. That’s getting too far ahead of himself. Dreams are all well and fine, but they’re achieved in the here and now, by the identification of what needs work and then the execution of that work by diligent practice.

The warm-up group clears the ice, and the Russian boy with the silver hair takes the ice. Otabek knows his name now; knows his records, knows that he’s already becoming a legend in men’s skating even at the still relatively young age of twenty-one. Otabek knows that, if he continues as a skater, and if he works hard enough to become competitive at a high level, it’s going to be this man’s records that he will have to beat.

The music starts, and Viktor steps into his routine, graceful, practiced, skilled. 

Otabek picks up the notebook and the pen and gets ready. He wants to mark down every move Viktor makes so he can practice them later. Maybe his axel jumps are only singles right now, but he’s been working on them. He’ll be able to do a double soon.

\---

_ Yuuri _ :

He’d wanted to watch the men’s free skate with Yuuko, but she had a date with Nishigori, and Yuuri wasn’t about to try and talk her out of it just so she can huddle with him in his room and watch a skippy livestream from Vancouver late at night. Or early in the morning. Whatever time it is doesn’t matter, because Yuuri has his blanket up over his head, and Viktor is taking the ice.

There aren’t words to describe what Yuuri feels when he watches Viktor skate: when he was little, it was simple idol-woship, or adoration. Devotion, maybe, even a baby crush. Now that he’s older, now that he’s one of the dime-a-dozen junior skaters in Japan, his feelings for Viktor are more… complicated.

There’s awe, always; what Viktor has accomplished in his time on the planet is truly, objectively, impressive, and it’s this that Yuuri falls back on whenever he starts to feel too embarrassed about the number of posters on his walls, or the font of Viktor Nikiforov trivia he carries in his brain. It’s okay to be a fan of someone as amazing as Viktor.

But there’s also love, and a healthy dose of lust, which pinks Yuuri’s cheeks whenever he admits it, even if it’s just in the silence of his own mind. Also, there is a longing: Yuuri wants, desperately, irredeemably, to reach out to VIktor, to see if he can help Viktor fill the cracks in his expression that Yuuri sees whenever Viktor thinks the cameras aren’t on him. 

Something in Viktor calls out to him, and something inside himself answers, insistently, and incessantly. 

Too bad they’re destined never to meet.

\---

_ Viktor _ :

Another competition, another medal. Another perfect skate, another standing ovation from the crowd. Another world record, another gold. 

He’s too young to be tired of winning - he’s only just beginning to hit his prime, he can feel it. Retirement is years and years off, but he’s been winning practically everything (that bronze at the GPF in his second senior season doesn’t count, he had the flu) for five years now at the senior level, and for years before that as a junior. 

It’s not that he’s bored - he’s been thinking about this. He can’t imagine doing anything else with his life, can’t imagine the time he spends on the ice spent on any other way. He doesn’t have friends, he doesn’t have hobbies. He likes to read, but it’s a gap filler while his muscles rest so that he can go back out on the ice again.

He’s not tired. But, he wonders, are people beginning to tire of him?

Who watches him, anyway? Some, he knows: teenage girls and boys who think he’s pretty; grandparents and their grandchildren; up and coming skaters of all genders around the world. Who else, he wonders, who else is he skating for? How can he keep them interested?

He steps out of the shower and stands naked before the mirror. His body is fully adult now, broad of shoulder, narrow of hip. He’s tall, for a skater, though average for a Russian. He doesn’t grow much beard ( _ thank god _ , he thinks), but his jaw is sharp and his features masculine, if refined. He tips his head, considering, and his eye catches on the lengths of damp silver hanging nearly to his waist.

_ Maybe _ , he thinks,  _ maybe it’s time for a surprise _ .


	3. 2014

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sochi Olympics: 2014

_ Yuri _ :

As a privilege granted to only Yakov’s most promising pupils, Yuri is allowed to attend the Olympics in Sochi under strict supervision. Several of Yakov’s skaters are competing, including Georgi, Mila, and of course, the one, the only, Viktor Nikiforov. 

Yuri has been sharing a rink now with Viktor for over a year, ever since he managed to impress Yakov enough at one of Yakov’s special clinics to get an offer to come on as a student, and it has simultaneously done nothing and everything to change the awe that Yuri has always felt for Viktor.

His hero, as it turns out, is an utterly ridiculous human, and Yuri honestly is still processing this information. Having only ever seen Viktor on TV either skating like a god among men or giving intensely professional interviews and flirty winks for the camera, Yuri was unprepared for how Viktor sings pop songs continually under his breath, either completely unaware or uncaring that he can’t carry a tune in a ten-gallon bucket. Or how Viktor will take any excuse to tease the younger skaters. Or that he flirts with anything that  _ moves _ . Or how much he loves his stupid fucking floppy, slobbery,  _ dog _ .

And yet. Viktor on the ice is everything Yuri had even imagined and more: ruthless, exacting, determined. He’s gifted, yes, perhaps unfairly so, but also Viktor  _ works _ . And he requires that everyone around him work as hard as he does, or, as he chirps happily,  _ what even is the point _ ?

Yuri stands in the back of the skater viewing area, squeezed in between Mila and her best friend Sara, both making their Olympic debut this year, and watches as Viktor takes the ice. The roar from the crowd is deafening, and he takes Mila’s hand without thinking, squeezing hard as the music starts, and Viktor breaks his opening pose.

There’s still nothing like watching Viktor Nikiforov skate.

\---

_ Otabek _ :

As the crow flies, the Olympics in Sochi are shockingly close to Otabek. Closer than most others are, at least. Nonetheless, they may as well be a world away for how likely it was that Otabek would be able to attend, so he crowds into a small training room with his rinkmates to watch the figure skating competition. 

Some of the other skaters only watch their own events; the women watching the women’s skating, the men watching the men’s, and so on. Otabek watches them all. He can learn from other skaters, even in other disciplines. There’s something to learn from everyone, he thinks, and so he spends a lot of time with his notebook watching replays of competitions from around the world, taking note: This skater is young and still developing, but they have a tremendous sense of showmanship. This skater is nearing retirement, but they’re still a danger to anyone competing for the top spot because they know how to maximize their elements and can improvise if something goes wrong. This pairs team moves to the music with a grace Otabek can’t match, this ice dance pair has footwork that should make any skater green with envy.

This skater is Viktor Nikiforov, and he will never be finished teaching the world how it’s done, Otabek thinks wryly, pen at the ready as Viktor takes the ice. It’s good; Otabek needs something new to practice. He can’t wait to see what Viktor will do next.

\---

_ Yuuri _ :

Yuuri is sick with the flu and nearly delirious the week that the figure skating competitions are held in Sochi, but he gets up early anyway, dragging himself into a hot shower in his tiny shared apartment in Detroit in a futile attempt to steam some of the sickness out of his head. 

He pulls on clean pajamas and sets his tea and tissues next to the couch as he dials up Yuuko on video chat and suffers through her usual concerns. Is he eating enough (yes, too much), is he sleeping enough (yes, too much), how’s his quad loop coming (it’s coming).

They watch the skaters from all the groups, commenting on execution and costumes and nerves, deciding whether they think the judging is fair or biased or overly strict. He blows his nose and coughs, drinks his tea and huddles under his blankets and tries not to doze off. He can’t go back to sleep until the event is over, can’t rest until he’s seen Viktor skate.

As an adult, only recently turned twenty-one (which means he can do everything in America except rent a car for some obscure reason), his regard for Viktor is full of respect. When he and Yuuko first began watching Viktor, the four years that separated their ages seemed like an eternity; Viktor seemed so old and otherworldly, completely untouchable and utterly unreal. When Yuuri was a teenager, the gap was still vast, a nearly-adult to a still-mostly-child, a gifted skater taking the world by storm and an anxious amateur struggling up through the ranks. 

Now, though, Viktor is twenty-five and after every competition he gets asked about retirement in spite of the fact that he’s having his best season to date, and Yuuri has been skating in Detroit for three and a half years now, hoping to catch Viktor long enough to say hello, to wonder if Viktor’s ever seen him skate, to maybe,  _ maybe _ , compete on the same ice, and those four years seem almost negligible.

He’ll never voice the hope of beating Viktor; it seems sacrilegious, given the way he watches Viktor skate with his heart in his mouth and tears in his eyes. How can anyone, ever, hope to beat that?

He thinks about it, though.

\---

_ Viktor _ :

Reinvention, Viktor is realizing, can only carry you so far when the only place you can turn for inspiration is external. 

He’s twenty-five now, and though he doesn’t feel like quitting, doesn’t even feel like he  _ should _ feel like quitting, everyone else sure seems to think he should at least explore the idea. His rinkmates watch him appraisingly, murmuring if he has an off day. The media speculate about what he’ll do when his run is over - will he coach? Will he whore himself out to public event after public event? Will he retire silently into obscurity? And there’s a whole new generation of skaters coming up behind him who were tiny children when he first took the Olympic ice at seventeen, who have spent the last eight years champing at the bit to prove themselves against him, who have spent days and nights dreaming of being the one with just enough grit or guts or gift to knock him off the podium.

Joke’s on them, he thinks dryly, he’s not going anywhere. He’s got nowhere else to go, nothing else to do, but keep winning, keep beating himself over and over and over. He’ll do it till he’s done, and damned if anyone else is going to tell him when that is.


	4. 2018

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Pyeongchang Olympics: 2018

_ Yuri _ :

“I’m going to beat you all,” Yuri growls, arms around Otabek and Yuuri, staring directly at Viktor’s smug face as he says it. “I’m going to wipe the  _ ice _ with you. I’m going to humiliate you so bad you won’t want to ever show your face in a rink again.”

He can feel Otabek sigh while Yuuri laughs silently. Viktor, the shit, doesn’t bother being silent with his laughter, and throws his head back and opens that stupid heart-shaped mouth of his all the way, his eyes squinting up with amusement and revealing the crow’s feet that have been there for years now. He catches Yuri under the chin and leans in to kiss him, still laughing as he pulls back.

“We love you too, Yurochka,” he says, and Otabek and Yuuri hum in twin agreement. “Now go out there and kick our asses.”

\---

_ Otabek _ :

“He was very good,” Otabek comments neutrally as he and Yuuri watch Yuri raise his hands in victory at center ice, his second skate now under his belt and his score the one to beat.

Yuuri just hums noncommittally, and Otabek turns to regard him in surprise. “He’s done better,” Yuuri says, “and he knows it. His jumps were exquisite like always, but he wasn’t focusing on the presentation. It got sloppy. He left the window open for you, if you take it.”

Otabek raises an eyebrow. He loves it when Yuuri voices the sharp analytics that run through his head nearly continuously. For someone who can’t be depended on to evaluate his own skills or worth on any kind of realistic scale, he’s devastatingly accurate about everyone around him. 

Yuuri squeezes Otabek’s hand below the boards. “Go, Hero of Kazakhstan,” he says, and smiles that sweet smile. “Make us all proud.”

Otabek squeezes back, and steps toward the ice.

\---

_ Yuuri _ :

It’s not that he doesn’t get nervous anymore; he definitely,  _ definitely _ does. It’s that, somehow, over the last year and a half of winning and winning and falling in love and winning some more and falling in love some more, he kind of… doesn’t care that he gets nervous? The joy of competing against his peers, his idol, his  _ lovers _ is so overwhelming that it can’t be overtaken by the tremble in his hands or the shortness of his breath as he warms up. 

He steps onto the ice, and he hears the music, and he sets it all aside, and he begins to dance. He doesn’t jump, he flies, and when he lands, he soars, and when the music stops, he’s somehow at the center of the rink and crying, hands outstretched to the world and overwhelmed with emotion too big for his small body, his aching heart. 

But it’s okay, because now he has others to help hold his heart for him, so he smiles through his tears, and bows to the crowd before he leaves.

\---

_ Viktor _ :

He won’t deny that it’s bittersweet, watching from the sidelines in his still-sweaty costume as the three people he loves most in the world medal and he doesn’t. It was close,  _ very _ close; the closest four-way finish in Olympic history, in fact: Otabek took gold by .08 points over Yuuri, who only beat Yuri by .11 himself. The difference between Otabek’s gold and Viktor’s fourth place finish is less than two points, and Viktor is sure that battles are already being fought online about which elements should have been downgraded in whose performance, or who got robbed on their presentation score. 

It doesn’t matter. Three new records were set, and every single one of them broke a personal best here, and later tonight they will all go back to their hotel suite and congratulate each other at length, eating and drinking and loving into the night.

Viktor has never,  _ never _ , been so happy.


End file.
